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The alphabetic principle recognises that letters and combinations of letters are used to represent the sounds of a language which are based on the relationship between written letters, symbols, and spoken words.

An antonym is a word opposite in meaning to another word e.g. bad and good.

Apply

select and use information and/or knowledge and understanding to explain a given situation or real circumstances

Apply

select and use information and/or knowledge and understanding to explain a given situation or real circumstances

Appreciate

recognise the meaning of, have a practical understanding of

Appreciate

recognise the meaning of; have a practical understanding of

Assess

judge, evaluate or estimate the nature, ability, or quality of something

Assessment

Assessment is the process of generating, gathering, recording, interpreting, using and reporting evidence of learning in individuals, groups or systems. Educational assessment provides information about progress in learning, and achievement in developing skills, knowledge, behaviours and attitudes.

Assessment task

Any performance opportunity that allows students to demonstrate their progress and achievements in relation to learning outcomes.

All of the factors, both internal and external, which influence the function of a business. It includes, for example, consumers, suppliers, competing companies, entrepreneurs, improvements in technology, laws, government activities, and market, social and economic trends

give an account of the similarities and/or differences between two (or more) items or situations, referring to both/all of them throughout

Compare

give an account of the similarities and/or differences between two (or more) items or situations, referring to both/all of them throughout

Complete

finish making or doing; bring to a successful conclusion

Complex sentences

A complex sentence has an independent clause joined by one or more dependent clauses. A complex sentence always has a subordinator (also known as a subordinate conjunction) such as because, since, after, although, or when or a relative pronoun such as that, who, or which e.g. The students are studyingbecausethey have a test tomorrow.

Compound sentences

A compound sentence contains two independent clauses joined by a coordinator (also known as a coordinating conjunction). The coordinators are as follows: for, and, nor, but, or, yet, so. Except for very short sentences, coordinators are always preceded by a comma when used to join two independent clauses e.g. Alex played football, so Mary went shopping.

Comprehension strategies

Comprehension strategies are strategies and processes used by readers to make meaning from texts. Key comprehension strategies include:

activating and using prior knowledge

predicting

visualising

making connections

questioning

clarifying

determining importance

inferring

synthesising.

Conduct

to perform an activity

Conduct

organise and carry out

Conduct

to perform an activity

Connectives

Connectives are words which link paragraphs and sentences to focus on time, cause and effect, comparison or addition. Connectives relate ideas to one another and help to show the logic of the information. Connectives are important resources for creating cohesion in texts. The purposes of connectives can be grouped as follows:

Decontextualised language is defined as language that is context free. It is not rooted in any immediate context of time and situation and does not rely on observation or immediate physical experience. The use of decontextualised language is critical to children’s learning at a variety of levels. It is used to create and to convey new information to audiences who may share only limited amounts of background information with the speaker. The terms decontextualised language and ‘literate language style’ are similar as both refer to language that is organised, explicit and distanced.

The factors used in producing goods or providing services. They are the inputs that are used to create things or help provide services including human resources and non-human resources, such as land, capital goods, financial resources, and technology

Elements

Each strand is divided into a number of elements, which are the headings under which the learning outcomes are grouped.

Enterprise

This strand encourages students to identify opportunities and turn them into practical and targeted activities within business and wider society through the development and application of their understanding, skills and values. It develops students' basic understanding of the financial, marketing and operational functions of an organisation

Entrepreneurship

To act upon opportunities and ideas and transform them into value for others. The value that is created can be financial, cultural or social

Evaluate

Evalaute (data): collect and examine data to make judgments and appraisals; describe how evidence supports or does not support a conclusion in an inquiry or investigation; identify the limitations of data in conclusions; make judgments about ideas, solutions or methods Evaluate (ethical judgement): collect and examine evidence to make judgments and appraisals; describe how evidence supports or does not support a judgement; identify the limitations of evidence in conclusions; make judgments about ideas, solutions or methods

Evaluate (data)

collect and examine data to make judgments and appraisals; describe how evidence supports or does not support a conclusion in an inquiry or investigation; identify the limitations of data in conclusions; make judgments about ideas, solutions or methods

Evaluate (ethical judgement)

collect and examine evidence to make judgments and appraisals; describe how evidence supports or does not support a judgement; identify the limitations of evidence in conclusions; make judgments about ideas, solutions or methods

Examine

consider an argument or concept in a way that uncovers the assumptions and relationships of the issue

Examine

consider an argument or concept in a way that uncovers the assumptions and relationships of the issue

Explain

give a detailed account including reasons or causes

Explain

give a detailed account including reasons or causes

Explore

observe or study in order to establish facts

Exploring business

This element focuses on the context for business, looking at the themes of globalisation, sustainable development and consumerism. It enables students to reflect on the interconnectedness of business to the economy, society and environment, and encourages them to be active and responsible

Expository text

Expository text is a type of oral or written discourse where the purpose is to explain, inform or describe.

Genres are types of multi-sentence oral or written text structures that have become conventionalised for particular purposes with expected organisational patterns, as well as language features related to register e.g., narrative, informational, persuasive, and multi-genre. Simply put, genre refers to a selection of writing forms in order to recount, explain, entertain, inform, give instructions, narrate, persuade and justify opinions.

Genre awareness

Refers to the knowledge the students build up of the range of text types they read and in which they learn to compose.

Globalisation

A process of international integration emerging from the interchange of world views, products, services, ideas and other aspects of culture

Homographs are words of the same spelling but with more than one meaning, and/or a different pronunciation e.g. bow, record.

Homonyms

Homonyms are words that are pronounced but have different meanings e.g. to, too and two, heir and air, soot and suit.

Identify

recognise patterns, facts, or details; provide an answer from a number of possibilities; recognise and state briefly a distinguishing fact or feature

Identify

recognise patterns, facts, or details; provide an answer from a number of possibilities; recognise and state briefly a distinguishing fact or feature

Illustrate

use examples to describe something

Independent reading level

Independent-level text is a term for a text which a child can read fluently and comprehend without help of any kind from the teacher. A child should be able to identify 95-100% of the words and comprehend 90-100% of the text.

Instructional-level text is a term for a text that is appropriately challengingfor a child. Instructional-level texts are appropriate for use in guided reading. With normal classroom instruction and appropriate support a child should be able to identify 90-95% of the words and comprehend 75-90% of the material in the text.

Integrated skills

Although this language specification presents Oral Language, Reading, and Writing as separate strands, the student encounters language as an 'integrated' experience where oral language, reading and writing take the form of a continuous and overlapping thread.

Interpret

use knowledge and understanding to recognise trends and draw conclusions from given information

Interpret

use knowledge and understanding to recognise trends and draw conclusions from given information

Invented spelling

Invented or approximate spelling is a term used when a child uses his/her own combination of letters to make words when creating texts.

Investigate

observe, study, or make a detailed and systematic examination, in order to establish facts and reach new conclusions

Investigate

observe, study, or make a detailed and systematic examination, in order to establish facts and reach new conclusions

Joint attention

Joint attention is a situation where the individuals involved in a communicative act both focus on the same object. It is more than just looking at an object; the individuals understand that they are attending to the same thing—intentionality.

Justify

give valid reasons or evidence to support an answer or conclusion

Justify

give valid reasons or evidence to support an answer or conclusion

Language of discourse

Discourse requires that children produce several utterances to build particular linguistic structures such as narratives, factual accounts, arguments, explanations or combinations of these. This requires that children go beyond the basic sentence and combine sentences to build accounts which are coherent in terms of organisation of meaning and content, and cohesive in terms of continuity between sentences. The language of discourse requires that children have the sophisticated and genre-specific vocabulary and the grammatical knowledge to formulate sentences for the particular topic under discussion.

Learning outcomes

Statements in curriculum specifications to describe the knowledge, understanding, skills and values that students should be able to demonstrate after a period of learning.

Metalinguistic awareness refers to the ability to think about and reflect on language and how it is used both as a process and as an artifact and to understand that we can change language in different ways. As children’s metalinguistic awareness develops, they increasingly understand, for example that language may have both a literal meaning and an implied meaning.

observe and check the progress of something over a period of time; keep under systematic review

Morpheme

Morpheme is the smallest meaningful or grammatical unit in language. Morphemes are not necessarily the same as words. The word ‘cat’ has one morpheme, while the word ‘cats’ has two morphemes: ‘cat’ for the animal and ‘s’ to indicate that there is more than one. Morphemes are very useful in helping students work out how to read and spell words.

Multimodal texts

Multimodal texts combine language with other systems for communication, such as print text, visual images, soundtrack and the spoken word.

Narrative text

Narrative texts are a type of oral or written discourse where the purpose is to tell a story or narrate an event or a sequence of events. Narrative text can be categorised as fiction or non-fiction.

Open questions are higher-order questions that require the respondent to think and reflect. These questions cannot be answered by a yes or a no. They require a more developed answer which takes account of the respondent’s own knowledge and/or feelings.

Oral reading fluency

Reading fluency is the ability of readers to read orally with speed, accuracy and appropriate prosodic features such as expression, stress, pitch and suitable phrasing.

Organisation

An organised group of people with a particular purpose, such as a company or a government department. It can be a for-profit or a non-profit organisation and can include everything from a small owner-operated company such as a family restaurant, to a multinational company

Organise

to arrange; to systematise or methodise

Our economy

This strand enables students to understand the dynamic relationship between the local, national and international economic situation. It develops students’ ability to identify and understand basic economic concepts as they relate to personal finance, enterprise and the Irish economy

Outline

to make a summary of the significant features of a subject

Paralinguistic skills

Paralinguistic skills include:

audibility

intonation

pitch

pause

emphasis

pace.

Personal Finance

This strand focuses on students developing a set of skills, knowledge and values that allows them to make informed decisions to effectively and responsibly manage their financial resources.

Personal finance

This strand focuses on students developing a set of skills, knowledge and values that allows them to make informed decisions to effectively and responsibly manage their financial resources.

Personal word banks

Personal word banks are collections of words that a writer uses or needs that are related to personal interests and/or commonly misspelled. The words included in the personal word bank are not displayed in the classroom or easily located.

Phoneme

A phoneme is the smallest unit of sound in a word. The word it has two phonemes /i/ and /t/. The word ship has three phonemes /sh/, /i/, /p/.

Phonemic awareness

Phonemic awareness is the insight that every spoken word comprises a sequence of phonemes. Because phonemes are the units of sound that are represented by the letters of an alphabet, an awareness of phonemes is key to understanding the logic of the alphabetic principle and thus to the learnability of phonics and spelling.

Phonological awareness

Phonological awareness refers to an individual's awareness of the phonological structure, or sound structure, of words. It includes understandings about words, rhyme, syllables, onset and rime, and phonemes.

Semantics is concerned with meaning; meaning is expressed by the relations between words. Semantic cues are clues to word meaning that can be gleaned using the clues in the picture, the text and/or prior knowledge.

Sense of voice

Sense of voice refers to the development of the child’s own voice and self-expression (agency).

The social functions of language are those where language is used for the purpose of everyday social interaction such as greeting, expressing appreciation, expressing sympathy and concern, saying sorry and welcoming visitors with confidence.

Sound

The term ‘sound’ relates to the sound we make when we utter a letter or word, not to the letter in print. A letter may have more than one sound, such as the letter ‘a’ in was, a sound can be represented by more than one letter such as the sound /k/ in cat and walk. The word ship had three sounds /sh/, /i/, /p/, but has four letters ‘s’, ‘h’, ‘i’, ‘p’. Teachers should use the terms ‘sound’ and ‘letter’ accurately to help students clearly distinguish between the two items.

Spelling strategies

Phonetic and conventional spelling strategies can be used for unfamiliar words when creating texts.
These strategies include:

A process of balancing the social, economic, and environmental systems that are in constant interaction for the well-being of individuals now and in the future. There are three core pillars of sustainability: the social, the environmental, and the economic (people, planet, and profit)

Sustainable development

Development which meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. It is a continuous, guided process of economic, environmental and social change aimed at promoting the well-being of citizens now and in the future

Synonyms

A synonym is a word that has the same or nearly the same meaning as another word e.g. happy, joyful, elated.

Syntactic cues

Syntactic cues are clues to word meaning that can be gleaned from knowledge of word order, sentence structure and word relationships.

Syntax

Syntax refers to the organisational rules specifying word order, sentence organisation and word relationships. Syntax specifies which word combinations are acceptable or grammatical, and which are not. The form or structure of a sentence is governed by the rules of syntax. These rules specify word, phrase, and clause order; sentence organisation; and the relationships between words, word classes, and other sentence elements.

Text organisation is the way information is organised in different types of texts for example, chapter headings, sub headings, table of contents, indexes and glossaries, overviews, introductory and concluding paragraphs, sequencing, topic sentences, taxonomies, cause and effect. Choices in text structures and language features together define a text type and shape its meaning.

Text organisational structure

Text structure is the way that information is organised in different types of texts for example, chapter headings, sub-headings, table of contents, indexes and glossaries, overviews, introductory and concluding paragraphs, sequencing, topic sentences, taxonomies, cause and effect. Choices in text structures and language features together define a text type and shape its meaning. .

Texts

All products of language use—oral, gesture, sign, written, visual, using Picture Exchange Communication System (PECS), objects of reference, Braille, tactile, electronic, digital and/or multimodal—can be described as texts. Multimodal texts include the combination of a variety of forms of communication such as print text, digital text, visual images, audio (e.g., a performance or event) and spoken word. In this definition, 'multimodal' is not synonymous with 'digital'.

Themes

Among the themes for Irish are; myself, at home, school, food, television, shopping, pastimes, clothes, the weather and special occasions. The teacher can select lots of topics from the themes. These topics could be extended to also include subjects that the child finds interesting.

This element broadens students’ understanding by enabling them to proactively apply their knowledge and skills to their own lives and in the dynamic business environment

Verify

give evidence to support the truth of a statement

Verify

give evidence to support the truth of a statement

Vocabulary development

Children’s oral vocabulary and reading vocabulary develop in terms of increasing complexity from concrete to abstract, with regard to the frequency of word use, the complexity of meaning, the depth of word knowledge and the changes that occur through the processes of word formation

Vocabulary strategies

Vocabulary strategies assist to determine or clarify the meaning of unknown words and phrases, including: